NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Chris Cassidy and are scheduled to depart the International Space Station’s Quest airlock Tuesday for a spacewalk to will conduct a series of tasks in preparation for future upgrades to the station.
The duo will set their spacesuits to battery power about 7:35 a.m. EDT tomorrow, signifying the start of their spacewalk. NASA will begin its live coverage on NASA Television and the agency’s website at 6 a.m.
During their spacewalk, the two astronauts will remove handling aids from two locations at the base of station solar arrays, run cables, remove a lens filter cover from an external camera, and prepare the outside of the Tranquility module for the arrival later this year of the Nanoracks commercial airlock on a SpaceX cargo delivery mission.
This will be the 231st spacewalk in support of space station assembly and maintenance and the tenth for each of the spacewalkers. Behnken will be designated extravehicular crew member 1 and wear a spacesuit bearing red stripes. Cassidy will be extravehicular crew member 2, wearing a suit with no stripes.
Cassidy arrived at the space station in April, taking command of Expedition 63. Behnken, who is serving as a flight engineer for the expedition, arrived at the station in May with fellow Commercial Crew astronaut Douglas Hurley on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Demo-2 test flight.
Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on Twitter as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.